The present disclosure relates to a rotating body support device for supporting a rotating body and to a fixing device having the rotating body support device, and an image forming apparatus.
Conventionally, a rotating body support device for rotatably supporting a rotating body includes a rotating body, a bracket, and a bearing. The bearing is mounted on an insertion part formed on the bracket. Moreover, the rotating body includes a shaft, and the shaft is inserted rotatably into an inner peripheral part of the bearing. Depending on the usage environment, there are cases where the rotating body support device is subject to a load in a direction which intersects with the axial direction of the rotating body relative to the bracket. As such usage environment, there is a fixing device which performs fixation treatment of a toner image to a sheet in an image forming apparatus in which an image is formed on a sheet. The rotating body support device supports a fixing roller of the fixing device. When the pressure roller, which forms a fixation nip part with the fixing roller, is pressed against the fixing roller, load is applied to the fixing roller and an outer peripheral part of the bearing is tilted. Meanwhile, since the inner peripheral part of the bearing is supporting the rotating shaft of the fixing roller, it is tilted at an angle that is different from that of the outer peripheral part. With this kind of fixing device, there were cases where the bearing would become damaged as a result of the difference in the tilt angle between the outer peripheral part and the inner peripheral part of the bearing becoming significant.
The present disclosure was devised in order to resolve the foregoing problem, and an object of the present disclosure is to inhibit the bearing, which rotatably supports the rotating body, from becoming damaged.